A Hero's Choice
by Believer1
Summary: Anakin Skywalker stands on the precipice of history. The galaxy must wait to see if he will choose to remain a hero...or become a villain. ("Hero" by Chad Kroeger and Josey Scott.)


_I am so high I can hear heaven_

_I am so high I can hear heaven_

_But heaven, no heaven don't hear me_

Anakin Skywalker stood at the edge of a great precipice. Behind him and above him lay two different paths. The path ahead veered sharply down a canyon into the bright crimsons and golds and purple hues of a setting sun. It was darkly shadowed, and beyond the end – into the sun – he could not see where it went. 

Behind him lay the safety of all that he had ever known. Padmé, Obi Wan, even 3P0, resting in the dusty domes of the Lars homestead. At the end of this path, he could only see the brilliance of a sun rise, its scarlet and purple giving way to the soft blues and whites of the new day. The heat was already beginning to scald the dry Tatooine land. 

He wanted to retreat into the darkness of the path ahead. But there was still Padmé. And Obi Wan.

_And they say_

_That a hero can save us_

_I'm not going to stand here to wait_

_I hold on to the wings of the eagles_

_And watch as they all fly away_

One was a reminder of duty, the other of love. He had a promise to both to return. He _had to return. Wherever this path took him, wherever the other path kept him, they expected his presence. It was a burden that sometimes the 19 year old didn't want. Duty, honor, justice, love. _

It was a heavy weight for his shoulders to carry.

And it kept him from exploring that need for power, the whisper of the wind of the path ahead. 

_"You're not all-powerful, Anakin."_

_"Well, I should be." _

And why not? Why did power always have to be tempered by peace and calm? Why was he forbidden to feel what he did of Padmé? Why was it so wrong? 

Why could the Jedi not see it was the dawning of a new age and the death throes of the old? 

The Republic was dying, coming to its choking, bloody end. He could see that. After spending 10 years in the Jedi order, watching and waiting and finally _seeing with his own two eyes the extent of corruption, he knew it was ending. Democracy had come to its knees. _

He knew Padmé would never see. She was ever the believer. She had to believe. If there was no Republic, all that she fought for was for nothing. Neither would Obi Wan. He was too wrapped up in the orders of the Jedi and their strict ways, too tied down by bureaucracy to fly free, to truly serve justice. 

How ironic. The only two people who loved him were mired in the old ways. Obi Wan, as much as he was a beloved father, just didn't understand. And Padmé, his beloved, was trapped in by her unwillingness to see how democracy was dying. 

In this world, Anakin had learned, you have to rely on yourself. You cannot rely on an idea or bureaucrats to save you. Jedi are not infallible. Nor are mothers. They are simple humans who can be misguided, and who can die.

The boy who had believed his mentors and mother were infallible knew better now.

Love could not save people from dying. It could not save a Republic from dying. It, he hesitated as the thought entered his conscious mind, could not save the Jedi Order from ending. 

_Someone told me love would all save us_

_But how can that be, look what love gave us_

_A world full of killing and blood spilling_

_That world never came _

He would never admit it to those that mattered, but he didn't believe in it anymore, couldn't believe in a corrupt body of government or the bureaucracy that controlled the Jedi. 

So he stood at the crossroads. Take the path ahead, and gain freedom, or stay behind and never know. As one who knew the indignities and sufferings of bondage, he knew the obvious choice. Yet…at what price did he want his freedom? 

Padmé would be heartbroken if he left her and never came back. 

Obi Wan would never forgive him for leaving the order, for seeking something he himself didn't understand. 

He had been labeled the 'Chosen One' long before he had been able to understand the prophecy. All his life, the whispered words had followed him past the other Jedi trainees. He had felt like it was another burden added to his shoulders, a responsibility to bring the dying Republic, with the Sith clutching at its body and seeping into it like gangrene, to new birth and purity.

He wasn't ready for that. His confidence at undergoing the Jedi trials, he knew, was well-founded. Alright, so he was a little eager, maybe a little too impatient. But he would make a good Jedi. Coming from nothing, he was eager for everything.

But not the responsibility of being a galactic hero. He could not be the savior everyone thought he was. Surely he would've felt it by now? 

He didn't feel he was a hero. He was a Jedi, pure and simple. He believed in himself. He had to. There was no one else to believe in him. Those who did wanted to mold him into something else: Obi Wan, into the obedient Jedi who didn't dare stray from the path; Padmé into the responsible Jedi **friend who would make her proud. The staid rhythms of the life they both wanted were choking him.**

The 'Chosen One' wanted to find his own destiny. Wanted to become his own man, and wanted the adventure the Jedi life had without the bureaucracy. He wanted the power and the freedom.

And yet he hesitated. 

And the galaxy held its breath.

_And they say_

_That a hero can save us_

_I'm not going to stand here to wait_

_I hold on to the wings of the eagles_

_And watch as they all fly away_


End file.
